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DARLENE PURSLEY
Moving in Time:
Chantal Akermans Toute une nuit
Darlene Pursley
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engagement. Akerman describes the communication between spectator and film as occurring on both a physical (or spatial) and a
temporal plane: I want the spectator to feel a physical experience
through the time used in each shot; to make this a physical experience in which time unfolds in you, in which the time of the film
enters into you [Je voudrais que le spectateur prouve une exprience
physique par le temps utilis dans chaque plan. Faire cette exprience
physique que le temps se droule en vous, que le temps du film rentre
en vous] (Bghin 23, my translation). Akerman coerces her spectator to interact with the film externally or physically, and temporally,
that is to say, internally, as affect and memory.
To analyze the syncopation between external and internal, spatial
and temporal engagement in Toute une nuit we must turn to film
theory in order to understand how space, time, and cinematographic
subjectivity have been conceptualized. Film theorists such as Dudley
Andrew and Vivian Sobchack have both commented on the limitations of semiotic, structuralist, and psychoanalytic approaches to film.
In particular, they both acknowledge how the objective and scientific
analysis of cinematic signification that has dominated film theory
forecloses the opportunity to explore, in Andrews words, the otherside of signification, those realms of preformulation where sensorydata congeal into something that matters and those realms of postformulation where that something is experienced as mattering
(Andrew 627). Similarly, Sobchack argues that this other-side of
signification neglected by film theory is precisely at the limits of
objective analysis: . . . both psychoanalytic and Marxist film theory in
most of their current manifestations have obscured the dynamic,
synoptic, and lived-body experience of both the spectator and the
filmironically, in this context, as they have respectively emphasized
the sexual and material economy of the sign and signifying subject
(Sobchack xvi). The references to the absence of lived-body experience in cinema offer a clue as to the methodological approach
Andrew and Sobchack seek to revitalize in film theory: phenomenology. Each offers well-founded arguments as to why film theory must
be able to address the embodied act of viewing as a critical aspect of
the cinematic experience, and both should be lauded for challenging
film theory in this respect.3
Just five years after Andrew wrote The Neglected Tradition of
Phenomenology in Film Theory, and about seven years before
Sobchacks The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience was
published, Gilles Deleuzes first volume on cinema appeared in
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Deleuze distinguishes his approach to cinema from a phenomenological one by arguing that cinematic images emerge from actionreaction encounters between images, rather than from a perceiving
subject situated in space. By detaching consciousness from both the
anchoring of the subject and the horizon of the world however, as
Sobchack points out, Deleuze risks the disembodiment of both the
spectator and the film (Sobchack 31). Thus in order to ground the
film, its meaning, and the spectators lived-body situation, Sobchack
roots cinema and spectatorship in spatial terms. She identifies the
dichotomy of space and time as the distinction between her phenomenology of film and Deleuzes reading: It is not time, but space,
Sobchack explains, that grounds the question of cinematic signification in her study (31). But cinema understood as a purely spatial
phenomenon cannot fully account for something like Akermans
emphasis on a spectator in time. Bergsons own philosophical account of an interactive dualism between space and time may be able
to offer a suitable model with which to analyze spectatorship in Toute
une nuit. Akermans film invites us to reassess the problem of time in
cinematographic subjectivity, and to reconsider the medium of
cinema both as spatial extension and as internal temporal difference.
If, as Akerman explains, her spectator engages with the film as both
a physical or spatial and internal or affective experience in time, then
we cannot conceptualize her spectator as an anchored intentional
consciousness within the world of the film. However, just because, as
Bergson defines it, consciousness is an image among all of the other
images in the universe, this does not mean that mind must be
separated from body in the familiar Cartesian sense, resulting in a
disembodied filmic spectator. Rather, let us imagine that the spectators
consciousness is constantly rotating between space as narrative continuity and physical sensation and time as affect and memory. In order
to demonstrate how Akermans spectator pivots between space and
time, I will consider a series of shots in which all but one is part of a
continuous sequence. Each shot that I will look at is actually a distinct
narrative, just a few of the many that are collected together in Toute
une nuit. Ivone Margulies has described the numerous miniature
dramas of the film as microscenes, conventionally the turning
points in feature films, but in this film amassed in a proliferation of
scenes enacting clichs of love and passion (178). I will look at four of
these microscenes in order to demonstrate how the cut between
miniature dramas introduces a gap in narrative continuity. This
interruption in the narrative provides a glimpse into the constant
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Thus Akerman does not only use clichs in order to communicate the
uniqueness of romantic love, but she uses them in abundance,
stripping, multiplying, and repeating them to the extent that they
lose all meaning. It will be the spectator who provides the singularity
or special coloration to the platitudinous romantic clich.
Continuing with the sequence analysis, we left the dancing couple
as their song was concluding. In this pause, the couple holds their
pose as the last note hangs in the air. There is a kind of living stillness
and statuesque poise in the posture of the man and woman, eyes
locked on each other. The endurance of their sustained pose introduces the spectator to a moment of temporal suspension in which his
or her consciousness is invited to pivot backward into memory, to fill
in their pose with unique images in a moment of creative productivity. If the spectator accepts such an invitation and sinks into memory,
this temporal interval will endure across the eventual cut and into the
next shot. As the next shot materializes, the spectators consciousness
moves forward once again, seeking to frame the scene into a
comprehensible framework or narrative. But the woman in this shot
has not appeared before, and consequently, the spectator is unable to
identify her within a context. Given the lack of an intellectual
framework with which to grasp the scene, the spectator can only
recognize change insofar as the couples pause from the previous
shot endures, transformed from a sustained impression of harmony
between two individuals to the annoyance of waiting.
To the extreme left of the screen, from within the obscurity, the
silent rotation of the womans head as well as her lateral movement
back and forth, accompanied by the rhythm of her footsteps, creates
a sense of expectation and anxiety coupled with boredom and
frustration. All of these emotions interpenetrate, making it impossible for the spectator to name one principal emotion that Akerman
may be trying to convey. As the woman decides to leave, the rhythm of
her feet on the pavement animates the rhythm of the shot, accelerating, and merging into the more rapid, anxious steps of her late
partner. His footsteps seem louder than his partners, and the
heightened volume on the soundtrack is contiguous with an increased tempo, which deepens the impression of these movements
on the spectator.
The intensity of rhythm slows at the moment in which the man
realizes that his partner has already left. He waits several seconds, the
rocking movement of his mental hesitation evident as his body shifts
in place. Having made the decision to try to catch up to the woman,
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the sound of his rapid steps on the pavement reveals the energy of
attraction propelling him forward. As he catches up to her, both
bodies are off-screen, and consequently, their exact physical pose and
expression as they catch sight of each other is left to the imagination
of the spectator. However, at the center of the momentarily empty
image is a small white luminous statue, arms open wide as if expecting
an embrace. The pose of the statue virtually anticipates the actual
embrace of the couple that is to come, creating a syncopation of
present and future. Again, it is the temporal suspension of the pose
that introduces an interval, an invitation to the spectator to create the
singularity of the moment by coloring it with the past. The man then
enters into the image from the left, the woman from the right. The
couple becomes visible in the image as they embrace. Once united
physically and emotionally, they move off screen together into the
darkness as a single unit.
Seemingly out of this same darkness the fading footsteps of the
united couple transform into the brisk, staccato rhythm of a single
man. His summer suit, unbuttoned shirt and longish hair render him
virtually indistinguishable from the other actors in the film, and make
it impossible for the spectator to identify him or the mini-narrative in
which he is about to take part. The only distinguishable quality that
this man offers is the steady rhythm of his footsteps on the soundtrack,
expressing a sense of determination and assuredness.
Thus far I have demonstrated how Akerman communicates affective becoming through editing, sustained poses, and in the repetition
of romantic clichs. Moreover, it is the interval introduced through
her particular use of these effects that establishes the axis between
space and time, and between matter and mind, in which the
spectators consciousness shifts away from an intellectual engagement
with the mini-narrative, and receives an open invitation to create the
singularity of the scene through memory. It is in Matire et Mmoire
(1896) that the affective body introduces a temporal interval between
action (perception) and reaction, during which the subject can call
forth the relevant memory-images that will inform his or her choice
of response. In this sense, each moment is unique insofar as the
subject creates it with the input of individual memory-images. This
sensory-motor schema, action-interval-reaction, is one way of explaining how Toute une nuit offers an aperture for affective change: if
perception involves identifying characters, making associations, and
chronologizing narrative, then Akermans fragmentation of narrative, her cuts, as well as the actors poses suspended in time,
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affective states of the artist and our own states. In this sense, the
bodys physical imitation and repetition of the affective movement
within the aesthetic work draws us into corresponding or analogical
states of consciousness.12
Bergson explains that the intensity of sympathy can be enhanced
when the aesthetic object is accompanied by rhythm or music (E 12/
12). Rhythm intensifies the degree to which affective movement can
take hold of us. Additionally, rhythm is not limited to music. Poetry,
sculpture, architecture (we can include the cinema as well), also
possess the potential to incorporate rhythm (E 1516/14). In contrast to the movement of musical notes, the plastic arts communicate
rhythmic movement to the viewer in the fixity which they suddenly
impose on life [la fixit quils imposent soudain la vie] (E 15/14). For
example, Bergson describes how a sculptor can impress an affective
trace on the rigidity and immobility of stone with the lightness of a
passing breath [effleurent peine comme un souffle] (ibid.). Bergsons
metaphor also underscores the proximity, and potential interactivity,
that exists between inert things in space and the fluidity of time. This
metaphor of breath persists when he describes sympathy as a physical
contagion, another allusion to how moving in time with an artist
commences as a corporeal transmission of movement (ibid.).
Bergson explains that consciousness has access to varying degrees
of absorption within the artists movement, reminding us that it is not
all or nothing when it comes to sympathy. The suggestion of
movement could hardly interrupt the dense tissue of psychological
facts that composes our individual history, the suggestion could have
enough force to just partially detach attention from our own memory,
or the suggested feeling could absorb us to the extent that it
overwhelms our own soul (E 16/15). Sympathy can thus progress to
the point where individual thought and will becomes completely
permeated by the outward movements of the aesthetic image.13
If Bergson had the opportunity to view Toute une nuit, would he
elucidate cinematographic subjectivity as a sensory-motor schema, in
which the spectator could inform the filmic image with the singularity
of his or her memory-images, and therefore exercise choice in regard
to the degree of his or her engagement? Or would he describe the
filmic experience in terms of his model of sympathy, in which
Akermans suggestion of affective movement could potentially take
hold of consciousness entirely? Since the answer to this question is
unknown, and of course contingent upon the individual film that is
being studied, the only possible means of addressing the problem is
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NOTES
1 In a slightly different version, this paper was presented at the conference La
Fiction clate: Petits et Grands crans Franais et Francophones (Fiction
Breaks Out: French and Francophone Television and Big Screen Productions) at
the cole Normale Suprieure, Lyon, France in Summer 2004. The conference
was organized by the AFECCAV, the Ina, and the SCMS.
2 Ivone Margulies has described the gravitational energy that seems to pull lovers
together in Toute une nuit as a physics of desire (Margulies 179). As the author
of the only full-length book on Chantal Akerman to date, Margulies is the leading
voice in Akerman scholarship. Her comprehensive and intelligent analysis of
Akermans films has opened many doors for future study on the filmmaker.
3 Along with Sobchack and Andrew, Allan Casebier has also participated in the
move to rejuvenate film theory with a turn to phenomenology in an effort to
develop new possibilities and vocabularies for thinking about cinema. See
Casebiers Film and Phenomenology: Towards a Realist Theory of Cinematic Representation.
4 In The Neglected Tradition of Phenomenology in Film Theory, Andrew reviews
the early history of the phenomenological approaches to cinema that appeared in
France, naming Merleau-Pontys essay Le cinma et la nouvelle psychologie,
and Albert Laffays Logique du cinma among many others. In his critique of the
phenomenological approach to cinema, Deleuze cites these two studies as the
focus of his critique. See Cinema 1: The Movement-Image 57 and 57n3; and see 84
and 85n3 in the French edition.
5 While Andrew offers a detailed history of the encounters between phenomenology and cinema, Sobchack carefully distinguishes her phenomenology of film
experience as originating from Merleau-Pontys later semiotic phenomenology.
Both offer rigorous and thorough accounts of the intersections between cinema
and phenomenology.
6 Dorothea Olkowski has analyzed, through her reading of Luce Irigaray, the
breach between Henri Bergson and phenomenology. Her assertion of an implicit
Bergsonian critique of phenomenology within Irigarays writing inspired me to
reflect on Deleuzes insistance on a Bergsonian, and not a phenomenological
approach to the cinema. See Olkowskis The End of Phenomenology: Bergsons
Interval in Irigaray and Gilles Deleuze and The Ruin of Representation.
7 The first page number refers to the English edition, the second one to the
French.
8 Deleuze is referring here to Bergsons cinematographic illusion elaborated in
Chapter 4 of LEvolution cratrice.
9 Deleuzes reading of the cinema through Bergson here is based on Chapter 1 of
Matire et Mmoire: But the cinema perhaps has a great advantage: just because it
lacks a centre of anchorage and of horizon, the sections which it makes would not
prevent it from going back up the path that natural perception comes down.
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WORKS CITED
Andrew, Dudley. The Neglected Tradition of Phenomenology in Film Theory, in
Movies and Methods Volume II. Ed. Bill Nichols. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
U California P, 1985. 62531.
Bghin, Cyril, Raymond Bellour, and Mathias Lavin. De lAutre Ct, Sud, DEst: Trois
Films de Chantal Akerman. Paris: Shellac, 2003.
Benjamin, Walter. The Storyteller, in Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968. 83110.
Bergson, Henri. uvres compltes. Paris: PUF, 1959. In the OC: Essai sur les donnes
immdiates de la conscience (1889), Matire et Mmoire (1896), Le Rire (1900),
Introduction la mtaphysique (1903), and LEvolution cratrice (1907).
. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Trans. F. L.
Pogson. New York: Macmillan, 1910.
. Matter and Memory. Trans. N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer. New York: Zone Books,
1988.
Casebier, Allan. Film and Phenomenology: Towards a Realist Theory of Cinematic Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.
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